Marty Wheeler likes to drive through downtown with his kids for no reason at all. "Downtown still has a quaint vibe and it is very well kept," he told the Coeur d'Alene Press this spring. He is describing the version of downtown most residents carry around in their heads: familiar storefronts, the same lake view from the same corners, a rhythm you could set a watch by.
That version is still mostly true. But if you have walked past 424 E. Sherman Ave. lately, you may have noticed something that does not fit the quaint-and-unchanging story. Cricket's Restaurant & Oyster Bar, the bar and grill that has poured drinks and shucked oysters on that corner since 1985, is no longer just Cricket's. This year the same ownership carved a second, separate restaurant called River & Rye out of the same building, giving it its own door on Sherman while Cricket's keeps its entrance off Fifth Street, rather than expanding down the block or opening across town.
That single decision says more about what is actually happening downtown this fall than any list of new openings could on its own. The businesses making the biggest bets are not the newest ones. They are the ones that have been here longest, betting they can reinvent themselves without leaving.
A 41-Year-Old Restaurant Splits Itself in Two
River & Rye is going for something different from its sibling: a menu drawing on Spanish, French and Italian flavors with Pacific Northwest touches, plus a craft cocktail program, aimed at a market that has grown more competitive over the past several years. Cricket's is not closing or relocating. It is staying put, still doing what it has always done, while a new concept opens a few feet away under the same roof.
That is a different kind of bet than opening a brand-new restaurant in a brand-new space. A new restaurant risks a lease and a build-out. A 41-year-old restaurant splitting its own footprint risks something harder to rebuild if it goes wrong: the goodwill of four decades of regulars who know exactly where the door is supposed to be. Whether that gamble is treated as an evolution or a distraction is the kind of thing you learn only by watching how a neighborhood actually responds, not by reading a press release about it.
The Newcomers Are Filling In Where the City Already Built
Contrast that with two other openings this year, both newcomers rather than incumbents, and both stepping into spaces that were already built for them rather than carving anything new.
People's Waffle opened May 22 at 400 N. Fourth St., serving gluten-free sweet and savory waffles seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Co-owner Jacy Janson said the location was chosen because so many customers from Post Falls and the surrounding area were already driving to the founders' original Spokane shop. This is a restaurant expanding toward its existing customers rather than trying to create new ones from scratch.
Twigs Bistro is doing something similar on a larger scale. The regional chain, which started in Spokane in 2001 and has stayed family-owned through eight locations, is bringing its first North Idaho restaurant to the Thomas George building at the corner of Third Street and East Front Avenue. Owner Trevor Blackwell has said he wants the spot to be less of a special-occasion destination and more of a weekly habit, somewhere you stop for an appetizer or a cocktail rather than save for anniversaries.
The Thomas George itself is worth pausing on, because its street-level commercial space sat empty for a long stretch while the tower around it went up. The building is an 18-story, 60-unit condominium project that broke ground in 2023 on a lot that used to hold a U.S. Bank drive-through, designed by Coeur d'Alene-based Miller Stauffer Architects with construction handled by Spokane's Garco Construction. Twigs will operate from a space that offers views of Lake Coeur d'Alene and McEuen Park, in a building residents watched rise for roughly two years before its ground floor ever seated a single dinner reservation.
So the pattern for 2026 is not simply "more restaurants downtown." It is one long-standing business splitting its own address in half, and two newcomers moving into space the city had already been building toward for years. Growth here is not spreading outward. It is filling in.
One Wednesday Left on Fifth Street
There is a deadline attached to all of this, and it has nothing to do with construction schedules. The 5th Street Farmers Market wraps its regular Wednesday season on September 2, closing out a run that started in May and grew to three full blocks this year, up from its previous footprint, with more than 80 vendors setting up along Fifth Street every week from 4 to 7 p.m.
Erika Murphy, who runs CDA Soap Co. and has sold at the market for four years, put the value of that weekly gathering plainly: "It is what has boosted my business." Her products now ship across the country because customers who first found her on Fifth Street keep ordering after they get home. That is the kind of return a single storefront rarely generates on its own, and it is part of why the market expanding north this year, rather than shrinking or relocating, matters more than it might sound.
The market does not disappear entirely after September 2. A one-off Harvest Market is planned for October 17, and Music at McEuen, the free concert series that has paired with the farmers market all summer, runs through September 2 as well. But the everyday rhythm of a Wednesday evening downtown, market then music then dinner somewhere on Sherman, goes on pause until next spring. If you have been treating that routine as a given, this is the last chance to use it before it resets.
The Report Card Downtown Just Signed Up For
All of this activity is happening under a new kind of scrutiny. In May, Idaho Commerce announced that Coeur d'Alene earned accreditation as a Main Street America program, making it only the second downtown in Idaho to reach that status after Driggs. The designation is built around four areas of work: economic vitality, design, promotion and organization, and it comes with an implicit test rather than a finished achievement.
Emily Boyd, executive director of the Coeur d'Alene Downtown Association, framed it as a reflection of the city as a whole rather than a trophy for its own sake, telling the Press that downtowns represent the health of a city wherever you go. But the accreditation itself does not fill a vacancy or seat a table. Over the coming year, downtown leaders will need to show the designation changed something beyond the letterhead, whether that means fewer empty storefronts, more consistent foot traffic at events, or simply a downtown that keeps functioning the way Wheeler drives through it expecting to find.
That is the real reason this fall's mix of a split restaurant, two newcomers, and a closing farmers-market season matters. It is the first real evidence of whether the accreditation means anything, gathered in real time, on the same streets residents already walk.
What Is Still on the Calendar Before Winter
A few dates worth keeping in mind before the season turns:
- September 2 — Last regular Wednesday of the 5th Street Farmers Market and Music at McEuen for the season
- September 7 — Labor Day Concert at Coeur d'Alene City Park, presented by the Coeur d'Alene Symphony Orchestra in the Rotary Band Shell
- September 18 and 19 — Oktoberfest returns to Sherman Avenue with beer gardens, food vendors and live music through the weekend
- October 17 — One-time Harvest Market on Fifth Street
None of these require you to think about buying or selling anything. They are just the events that will define how the next two months downtown actually feel, and this year they happen to line up with the most consequential stretch of business change downtown has seen in a while.
Whether that change holds, whether River & Rye finds its own identity next to Cricket's, whether Twigs becomes the weekly habit Blackwell wants it to be, is not something any press release can settle. It gets decided the way most things downtown get decided: block by block, one Wednesday at a time.
If you are watching how downtown Coeur d'Alene keeps evolving and want a local perspective on what that means for property values or timing, Sarah Griffin at Griffin Signature Living can walk you through it. Connect with Sarah for waterfront expertise and a personalized market valuation.
